


Ambrosia, dish of the gods

by dwellingondreams



Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Culinary Mishaps, Established Relationship, F/M, Miscommunication, One Shot, Romantic Fluff, Romantic Gestures, Surprises, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:21:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29436717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwellingondreams/pseuds/dwellingondreams
Summary: It’s not as though she never gets him gifts or suggests date nights, but it’s easy to feel a bit insecure when your romantic competition (in your own relationship, no less) is a three hundred year old vampire who can quote love poetry in half a dozen different languages, has already memorized all your favorite films and songs, and knows how to cook all your favorite meals, even the ones that required him asking your far from approachable mother about.Which is why for Valentine’s, she had to cut him off at the pass.(In which Detective Holly Lin's attempts to surprise Nate with a romantic evening don't go according to plan. At all.)
Relationships: Female Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	Ambrosia, dish of the gods

Her alarm chimes at six, which prompts Holly to writhe uselessly under the covers she’s tangled up in for several moments until she can reach her buzzing phone and turn it off. 

Her shift doesn’t start for an hour, and at this point in her adult life she knows she could, if pushed, sleep in until six thirty, get ready in fifteen minutes, and then blitz down to the station- it’s not as if she’ll be penalized for being a minute or so late, God knows Douglas shows up twenty minutes late with a latte in hand every other day. 

But she didn’t wake up this early to get ready, but to spend time with Nate, who she knows is awake- he’s an extremely light sleeper, and besides that, doesn’t need nearly as much sleep as her, so sometimes it feels less like they’re sharing a bed, and more like he is simply content to lie there and hold her, dozing on and off but not in the deep slumber she almost immediately falls into. 

“You should go back to sleep,” he whispers, treacherously, his breath tickling in her ear. Holly exhales into her pillow, then regrets it when she smells her own morning breath, but rolls over anyways, mopping her bangs out of her eyes to squint blearily at him. 

“I’m awake,” she insists, and palms his bare chest as if to prove it. Nate has two extremes when it comes to sleepwear. He either puts on very nice, high quality pyjamas, or he doesn’t wear anything at all. He also tends to run hot, which you wouldn’t think would be a problem for a vampire, but she consistently feels as though she’s always cold, and he’s always warm. 

“Go back to sleep,” he says, kissing her forehead. “I’ll wake you when you have to get up.” He sounds so contented and doting it almost irritates her; she has a very specific plan for today, and she will not allow him to ruin it by being his usual loving, compassionate, tender self. Even if she has to strong-arm them both through it. This is their first Valentine’s Day as a couple, and she wants it to be special. 

More specifically, she wants it to be a surprise. Nate is always surprising her; he is an expert at unexpected but thoughtful gifts. Hardly a week goes by where she doesn’t feel like he is surprising her with flowers, or coffee, or her favorite takeout or sweets. 

It’s not just material things, either. He will swing by the station without warning to walk her home from work, or think up interesting things for them to do together- last weekend they drove to the aquarium- she’d never even mentioned it before, so that means either Tina tipped him off, or he looked it up himself. 

The point is, Nate is incredibly thoughtful and considerate and generous. Which is part of why she loves him. But she can’t help but feel as though he’s always spoiling her, and she never gets the chance to do anything in return. 

It’s not as though she never gets him gifts or suggests date nights, but it’s easy to feel a bit insecure when your romantic competition (in your own relationship, no less) is a three hundred year old vampire who can quote love poetry in half a dozen different languages, has already memorized all your favorite films and songs, and knows how to cook all your favorite meals, even the ones that required him asking your far from approachable mother about. 

Which is why for Valentine’s, she had to cut him off at the pass. Holly announced two weeks ago that all she wanted to do for the holiday (not that it’s really a holiday, it’s not as if anyone gets time off work or school) was spend a quiet evening at home and watch TV and maybe play a board game. Yes, she likes board games. 

Tina says she takes them a little too personally, actually, but that’s an aside. Nate seemed surprised by this, then wondered if it was reverse psychology, but Holly had expected as much, and when (warmly) interrogated by him, Tina, Farah, even Adam and Morgan, of all people, said much the same. 

No, Holly isn’t lying to you. No, Holly doesn’t want you to do anything grand for her. Yes, she’s completely serious. We know she likes every other holiday but Valentine’s isn’t a big deal to her. No, you absolutely should not order that necklace for her. You’re overthinking this, Nathaniel. 

“I kind of feel like we’re gaslighting your boyfriend,” Tina had confessed to her a few days ago. 

Predictably, that raised Holly’s hackles, but it’s not! It’s not- she isn’t trying to manipulate Nate. Well, she is, but only so she can do something very special for him! This is the only way. She’s examined all other possible scenarios. She almost ran data on it. 

If she lets on that she is planning something very special for him, he will be thrilled, and endeavor to outdo her. Not deliberately, not to make her feel badly about her efforts, but just out of general enthusiasm. And whatever he comes up with will entirely blow her plans out of the water. It’d be like a tiny fishing sloop facing off against a warship. 

Hence all the lies and deception. She doesn’t feel good about it, exactly, but today is the day, and it will be worth it to see the genuine surprise on his face tonight. It’s very, very hard to get the drop on a vampire, as it turns out. She once thought she’d do something cute and sexy like in romantic comedies and hide from him while dressed up. 

That lasted all of thirty seconds. Well, fifty seconds if you count the twenty seconds he spent staring at her after he promptly dragged her, giggling and protesting helplessly, from her hiding place, but then the surprise, and the lingerie she was wearing, both met abrupt ends. 

Still, she knows he is caught off guard by her sudden insistence that she doesn’t want to do anything at all- for Christmas they went to see a lights festival in the city, and spent hours wandering down slushy streets, cups of hot chocolate in hand, and then got a hotel room, because why not- and for New Year’s, they went ice skating and then watched the fireworks out over the bay. 

He might think that she was angry, or sad about something, to suddenly have no desire in doing anything at all for Valentine’s, of all days, when she ordinarily quite likes getting dressed up for dates and eating at different restaurants and going to new places. 

He hasn’t been subdued, exactly, for the past few days, but he has been watching her closely, almost worriedly, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop and for her to suddenly confess some problem or gripe she has with him. They rarely fight, which means when they do, it’s quite serious. 

“What- Holly, go back to sleep,” his voice is rumbling in his chest as she kisses him almost ferociously, then rolls on top of him. “You’re going to be tired all day.”

Holly rests her chin on his collarbone and turns what she hopes is a coy glance on him. “So you want me to stop? And go back to sleep?”

He hesitates. 

“Alright,” she sighs, and starts to slide off him, but then he hooks one thumb in the hem of the leggings she’s wearing under an old tee shirt. 

“Only if you promise you’ll take a nap when you come home,” he says. “Really. I mean it. You shouldn’t-,”

“I shouldn’t wake up early to have sex with my boyfriend?” she stage whispers. 

He looks shocked she’s being this playful, this early- she’s not usually grumpy in the mornings, once she’s had her coffee, but she’s not usually this… spirited, either. But he also, she thinks with no small amount of satisfaction, does not question it, and instead drags her into another kiss instead. 

If she is going to give him the run-around today, at least she’s making sure he’s enjoying himself during it, right? 

Thirty minutes later when she really, really does need to actually get ready for work, she doesn’t regret it, exactly, but she does regret not going to bed earlier the night before, because once the brief pleasant after-sex emotional high has worn off- or maybe it’s just that her shower is never as hot as she’d like- she is, in fact, very, very tired, and puts on less makeup than usual, reminding herself to wash her pillowcases- well, really, wash everything later today. 

Both because of the sex and because if she’s not careful, the acne that plagued her through high school and most of university will return with a vengeance. 

Nate has taken it upon himself to make breakfast for her- just eggs and fruit, but more than she would have otherwise eaten or had time to make in her rush. She hugs him silently to thank him, then begins quickly eating, struggling to contain her yawns, even between fortifying sips of her coffee. He watches with bemusement, arms folded across his chest, though he has put on some pants, at least. 

“I’m fine,” she insists, as she finishes the last of her eggs. “The drive to work will wake me up.”

He makes a gentle noncommittal noise in reply, then sees her off with a kiss on the cheek, like a house wife, only he has actual work to do himself at the warehouse, and most housewives were probably, statistically speaking, not six foot four men with a swimmer’s physique and charmingly rumpled bed hair. 

She is not a danger to anyone on the road, though she drives slower than usual due to the ice, and successfully invigorates herself by listening to some national news hour, which is usually just stressful enough for your average small town detective to wake her all the way up. She’s only working until five today, and the station is charmingly decorated with some paper garlands and a few heart-shaped balloons in the atrium.

Douglas is wearing a pink polo shirt that was maybe in fashion a decade ago, when Holly was starting university and Douglas was… probably still possessing some baby teeth. Tina is wearing her uniform, but has spiced it up with a fuchsia neck scarf.

“You look like a flight attendant,” Holly informs her, as she refills her thermos in the kitchen.

“Oh, do I?” Tina poses coquettishly, batting her eyelashes, then narrows her eyes at Holly, leaning against the counter, a smile playing on her lips. “And what have you been up to this morning? Besides Operation Don’t Tell Nate?”

“Shush,” Holly hisses, gesturing frantically. 

“What, is he here? Can he turn invisible? Is he in the vents?” Tina looks around, eyebrows arched, which makes Holly chuckle in spite of herself. 

“No, but you never know- and I don’t know what you’re talking about, anyways.”

“Sure, Miss Sex Before Work.”

“Tina,” Holly mutters into her coffee. She definitely needs this second cup. Yes, she can feel it. It’s going to be a long day. 

“What? I’m not shaming, I’m envying. Okay, so you know Bryce? The Australian? So last night, he texts me, but I’m in the shower, so I didn’t see it, and then-,”

Twenty minutes later, Holly escapes the latest installment of the Bryce from Australia saga in order to actually sit down at her desk and get some work done. On the plus side, she and Unit Bravo have no open investigations at the moment. But she does have a lot of paperwork of the more mundane variety to catch up on, reports to write, emails to send, and much as she tries to diligently apply herself, she keeps clicking on the tab containing her list for the day. 

V-Day Schedule. 

V for Valentine’s and for Victory, she assures herself, once again. 

Dinner:

Flank Steak (very rare, pick up on way home from Sam’s DO NOT OVERCOOK)

Sides - grilled veggies, get mix from store, garlic potatoes (is garlic unromantic?)

Dessert - fruit salad (Ambrosia - cool whip?) and (red velvet) cheesecake 

Table - clean good silverware day beforehand DO NOT let him unload the dishwasher because that where it’s hiding. 

Other decorations - candles, unscented. Mood lighting (turn off the kitchen lights). Use playlist from Christmas Eve. 

Gift:

She clicks off the tab, then, glancing around almost surreptitiously, opens one of her desk drawers, and removes the long, thin box. She found this right after New Year’s in an antique’s shop Tina wanted to go into during a day trip in the city. She almost couldn’t believe her luck. It’s a spyglass from, the proprietor assured her, at least the 1840s. 

Is it wholly accurate to what was used by the Royal Navy a century before that? Probably not. But it is beautiful burnished copper and brass, gleaming even in the harsh lighting of her cramped office, a relic from another time, and it rests warm and solid in her hands. It cost her- well, not a fortune, she was raised to haggle- but, a pretty penny, she can admit that, but she never hesitated or doubted. It’s worth it. 

Almost sheepishly, she pecks the brass exterior for good luck, then slides it back into the box, and the box back into her drawer. 

Her shift can’t come to an end quickly enough. Luckily there aren’t any emergencies- no traffic accidents, no fires, no thefts- and she promptly shuts down her computer at ten to five, carefully removes the box from the drawer and slips it into her bag, and changes back into her boots. Tina is having an animated texting exchange in the hallway with Bryce the Australian, no doubt, and when she passes Douglas at the front desk he is, unsurprisingly, watching a film on his phone. Holly gives him a stern look as she departs, knowing he’ll go right back to it as soon as the door shuts behind her, and then her phone chimes on cue.

Nate and her don’t text much- they don’t even call much, unless one of them is out of town, for some reason. At first it made her a bit nervous- every other relationship she’s had has had near constant communication, and so it felt strange to be with someone who would genuinely forget their cellphone, forget to charge their cell phone, or take a very long time to reply to a simple text. 

But now it’s almost reassuring. When Nate does text her, usually only once a day, it’s necessary, it’s just to check in, it’s comforting, somehow. 

Will see you at seven? 

She replies with a smiley face and a heart as she unlocks her car, then carefully slides her bag into the passenger’s seat, rather than tossing it in as she sometimes does after a long, tiring day. When they first started dating- well, after she gave him keys to her place- she would sometimes arrive home from a shift to find Nate, almost like a loyal golden retriever, waiting expectantly for her in her flat. 

Not because he felt he needed to demand her attention, but because he genuinely could not think of any place he’d rather be, and because he naturally assumed she would want to see him as soon as she got home, so why wait? And it’s not as if she didn’t, but she had to explain she needed a window to recharge, and as pleasant and unobtrusive as his presence usually is, it’s not the same as having time to herself, alone in her tiny flat. 

Nate of course graciously accepted this, and now, even though half the time he sleeps over at her place, always waits at least an hour after her shift ends to show up in the flesh, unless she specifically asks him to be there. Sometimes she does. Wayhaven might be sleepy, but her job is still grueling, and emotionally taxing, and sometimes it’s just nice to see a friendly face when she opens the door. Which is not to say that she never comforts him, she does, but-

Maybe that’s part of it. Nate is over three hundred years old. He can compartmentalize and put things into perspective in ways she simply can’t. She is almost twenty nine. That’s not even half of his lifetime. Not even a quarter. She knows he doesn’t see her as a child, of course, and he never treats her in a condescending or infantilizing manner, but it does sometimes feel like a disadvantage. No emotion is new to him, not really, is it? 

No experience is truly original, when you’ve lived that long. She doesn’t like to brood over it, but- she knows he loves her, but sometimes, she worries, she does, that- of course he says he’s never felt this way for anyone, that he’s never had what they have with anyone, what else is he going to say? He’s too kind to say anything otherwise. 

How can she be the most- the most wonderful and exciting and real thing in his very long life? He’s been in love before, he must have been, and it will never- when they look at the stars, when they gasp and marvel at fireworks, when they walk down the street in the sunlight, does he feel exactly what she feels? 

Can he, after all this time? Is sitting on the sofa beside her watching TV- isn’t that so banal, for him? So tiresome? Watching her cook the same meals for her dinner? Doing the same routine every day? 

Sometimes she thinks it’s must be like- as if he were a renowned botanist, for example, and seeing her, being with her- well, after studying and collecting samples of so many lush and exquisite plants, is coming by her flat, holding her, dancing with her as she stumbles over his feet in the dark, is that just like… picking some scraggly daisies through a crack in the concrete? Charming and quaint and enjoyable, certainly, maybe even nostalgic, but… ordinary. Common. 

Despite this, she leaves the butcher’s with a smile on her face, the steak reassuringly heavy in her hands, wrapped in paper. This, at least, he won’t expect. 

Her flat is usually very neat, or so everyone tells her, but she still means to clean the kitchen and sitting room, and does so as soon as she gets home, even if it’s just running around with a dust rag and clearing all the various stacked papers and bills from the table by the door. 

She’s not going to have time to change once she starts cooking, so she jumps back in the shower- her second of the day, but she worked up a sweat in her rush- and puts on the outfit she carefully curated for this evening, a nude satin dress that comes to her thighs, gathered at the waist and wrist cuffs, the neckline a sharp v without being too constricting. Holly gathers her damp hair in a loose bun at the nape of her neck; she’ll deal with it later, and slips her bare feet into her house slippers. She’s not wild enough to try cooking a full meal in heels. 

She’s planning on pan-searing the steak, though she’s only ever grilled chicken on her admittedly very basic stove top. Still, she doesn’t think it should be too difficult, though Tina says she’s always been cocky about her culinary skills, just because she was the only one of their friends in university who could make something other than ramen and microwave dinners without it being a massive production ending in tears. 

She slices the meat carefully, making a series of parallel cuts, feeling oddly like a surgeon making incisions, then sprinkles one side with salt and pepper, the other with mustard, before rubbing it down with butter. She’s going to have to wash her hands multiple times when this is over, she thinks, unless she wants to smell like raw meat (and dry mustard) for the rest of the night. 

After heating the pan, she starts to sear it, biting her lower lip in concentration, terrified of charring it. It’s just as she’s turning it to check if it’s browning that she realizes she left her bag, and the gift, in the car. The freezing cold car in the middle of February, in a parking lot that’s had three cars broken into since December. Does copper warp in the cold? What about brass? What if someone’s rifling through her car right now? She did lock the doors, right?

Exhaling forcibly, she turns the steak, offers up a prayer to the cooking gods, and does something that would horrify her mother- she steps away from a lit stove, snatches her car keys off the counter, and darts across the room, throwing open her fire escape window and clattering down onto the frigid metal, the wind whipping her skirt around her legs as she hastily clambers all the way down to the lot below. She’s done this before when she’s forgotten something in the car, and as long as her landlord doesn’t see her, she’ll be fine. 

Luckily she parked very close by, and Holly triumphantly rips open the passenger side door, grabs her mercifully untouched bag, tucks it under her arm, and promptly slips on a patch of ice. 

She lands hard with a muffled gasp, one of her slippers going flying under the car, her bag secure in her arms, and resists the urge to roll into the nearest gutter and just die there. Instead she clambers back onto her feet, not even wanting to think about how dirty her brand new dress might- why didn’t she wear something black, why-

After extricating her slipper from under the car, sliding it back on, and plodding over to the fire escape, her trudging climb upwards suddenly hastens when she smells the unmistakable scent of something burning. Holly all but vaults through her open window, sets down her bag on the table, and rushes back into the kitchen to find that both sides of the steak are not brown; rather, one is still uncooked, the other is black. She flipped it the wrong way. She just put it back down on the already browned side. 

Numb with dread, she flips it, belatedly, and has the sudden urge to sit down on her freshly mopped kitchen floor and cry. She still has to do the vegetables, and the garlic potatoes. 

There’s a pounding on her door, and the sound of muffled voices. Holly braces herself against the counter for a moment, hoping they just have the wrong door. The knocking continues, then suddenly stops. She walks over to the door, her hair escaping its ragged bun from the cold wind blowing through her still open living room window, and opens the door. 

A disgruntled teenage boy she recognizes as one of the florist’s assistants is standing there, in heated argument with Nate, who looks almost as harried as her, albeit in his case ‘harried’ means he is frowning deeply and his leather jacket is a little rumpled, as if he just threw it on and rushed out the door. 

“Here, lady,” the boy says, shoving a bouquet into her arms. “This asshole is trying to cancel his order.” He glances her over. “But you look like you need them. No offense.”

“Actually, saying ‘no offense’ doesn’t make it less offensive,” Nate snaps at him, clearly at his wit’s end. 

Holly just stands there, the bouquet in her arms- pink and red camellias, one of her favorites. 

“And for that matter, she looks- Holly, why is your flat so cold? Did the window fall open?” he breaks off, then looks at her more closely. “Are you alright? Your legs are scraped up. Did you fall?”

“Why are you here?” is all she can manage to ask, in a strangled voice.

The delivery boy is already beating a hasty retreat down the narrow hall, suspecting he’s been caught in the middle of a warring couple. “Happy Valentine’s! Or whatever!”

“I had to climb out-,”

Nate has already moved past her and into the flat, sniffing. “Something’s burning.”

Holly follows him, clutching the bouquet, and as he removes the smoking pan from the stove, bursts into tears. 

She’s never been a crier, so after the initial reaction, which is for Nate to carefully remove the flowers from her embrace, guide her to the sofa, get some ice for her knee and some tissues for her running eyes and nose, close the window, turn off the stove, and offer to call her mother, she manages to get ahold of herself enough to in one, long, humiliated rush, explain the course of the evening’s events. 

“-I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but it was supposed to be a surprise and I just wanted it to be special-,” She feels even more terrible, knowing he was getting her flowers- camellias!- anyways. Did he try to cancel the order because he thought she’d be annoyed with him? That just makes her start tearing up all over again, to the point where she doesn’t even see him settle down on the sofa beside her, until his long arms wrap around her and pull her to his chest. 

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Nate says. “I’m just sorry you hurt yourself. Are you sure your knee’s alright? The scrape looks painful.”

“I’m fine,” she says, wiping at her eyes. “Sorry. I’m acting like a child, I just- I got this stupid, petty, idea that I was going to… to outdo you, because you’re always doing things like for me-,”

“Holly, I don’t work a full time job as a police detective,” he says gently. “I don’t- of course I don’t expect you to always do big things like this for me, just being together is enough-,”

“I just wanted things to be interesting,” she says, picking gravel out of her skirt, “I mean- I know it must be so dull, sometimes, being with me-,” She glances up at him, and sees his face fall. 

“You think it’s dull?” he asks, anxiously.

“No! For you! I- Nate, you’ve been everywhere, you’ve done everything, I just- I don’t know how- date nights with your human girlfriend could ever really compare-,”

“You are not my human girlfriend,” he says firmly, his large hands settling on her upper arms, as if to hold her together in one piece, like a priceless vase full of water. “Holly. You are the love of my life.”

It’s possibly one of the most cliché lines out there, but coming from him, it’s hit her like a wallop to the chest. “You- I am?” she asks helplessly. 

His tawny face softens. “How could you be anything else?” He kisses her brow so sweetly she almost cries again, but for a different reason. “I am never- I have never been bored, or tired, for a moment in your presence. Not since I met you, Holly. Never. If anything, I wonder that you aren’t bored of me-,”

“Nate, you’re incredible, how could I-,”

“I’m old,” he says honestly, with a hint of dry self deprecation in his voice, “and set in my ways. Maybe not physically, but- emotionally, yes. Maybe you don’t notice, but I do. Holly, you are so young, and your life- the life you make, every day, is extraordinary. And I am honored to be apart of it. Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing.”

She stares into his eyes for a moment, struck by the same mesmerized longing she first felt nearly a year ago, then throws her arms around him, and nuzzles into his neck, kissing his pulse so he shivers, though she is half his size. 

“And I really don’t care that you burned the steak,” he says, voice muffled. “Trust me, I’ve had far worse meals.”

She pulls back. “Your gift! You got me flowers, and I was- I’ll just give it to you now.”

She jumps and comes back with the box. This, at least, hasn’t been ruined. 

Nate takes it like she were offering him a precious jewel, though he has no idea what it is, and smiles warmly at her before opening it. For a few perilous moments he is dead silent, turning the spyglass over in his hands, then turns to her and kisses her on the mouth, not forcefully, but so… potently that her knees wobble, and not because one still hurts. 

“You like it?” she whispers when they break apart. 

He keeps his hand on the back of her neck, fingers swiping through her hair, until her bun falls down completely. 

“Yes,” he says, not at all referring to the spyglass, she thinks. 

“I’m sorry you thought you had to cancel your flowers,” she murmurs, not breaking her gaze.

“That’s alright,” he says. “The rest are still coming.”

“The rest?”

“I ordered a week’s worth.”

Holly starts to laugh, she can’t help it. “This isn’t like the Twelve Days of Christmas, Nathaniel.”

“I think it’s whatever we make it,” he assures her. 

Neither of them says anything for a long moment. She’s very hungry, but not for the charred steak not sitting forlornly in her sink.

Holly draws her legs up under her, slowly and deliberately raises herself up onto her knees, and grips her skirt with both hands, looking at him from under her eyelashes, though her makeup is runny and her hair is a mess and there’s blood on her sofa from her skinned knee. 

She doesn’t care at all, suddenly. About any of it, or the aborted dinner, or the camellias that really need some water.

“Did you wear this for me?” he says in a low voice, his hands covering her own.

“Well, if you have to ask-,”

He pulls her into his lap, and one satin sleeve slips down entirely to expose her shoulder. 

“Can I?” he whispers in her ear. 

She nips at his neck in response, and then grins when the satin rips. 

“You- are replacing- there, there, right- that,” she reminds him, before he finds the right spot just above her collarbone and she closes her eyes to make it stretch on longer, humming against her teeth and his skin as his other hand slides up between her legs. 

“You’re so cold,” he mutters, his thumb brushing over the inside of her thigh, towards her underwear. 

“Try climbing down a fire escape in a dress in Feb-,” she doesn’t get the rest of the sentence out, but she doesn’t mind, she’s too busy adjusting herself to keep the feeling going, her hands both coming down to guide as she rocks for a moment in his lap. 

“Did you eat lunch?” he asks casually, as he drags her underwear down her trembling legs while she arches up to help him along.

“Hm. Had a bagel and yogurt,” she reflects, then grabs his wrists, hard, when he makes a face. “Don’t. Stop.”

“You really need to eat something,” he scolds, though his eyes are lazy, half-lidded, like a big cat in the sun.

“You first,” she informs him, and to his credit, he rises admirably to the challenge. 

Her stomach actually growls later, as he rests his head on her belly, his belt discarded across the back of the sofa. 

“Next year,” she says, “we’ll do the steak. I really could go for a pizza.” The ceiling fan above them is moving far too slowly, and the room that seemed cold and drafty minutes ago is now sweltering. 

“Pizzas are romantic, too,” he agrees, faintly.

At least the fruit salad and cheesecake are still safely tucked away in the back of the fridge.

**Author's Note:**

> Some Notes:
> 
> 1\. The title for this fic comes from the Rosie Tucker song "Ambrosia", which is itself a reference to an American dessert (called Ambrosia, after the food of the Greek gods in mythology). Ambrosia is basically just a type of fruit salad with pineapples, oranges, coconut, marshmallows and cool whip on top. Supposedly it's very popular in Vermont. 
> 
> 2\. Holly and Nate are that annoying couple that are (usually) very into all holidays and anniversaries and any excuse to celebrate, basically. So Holly suddenly declaring she doesn't want to do anything for Valentine's Day would be very suspicious and out of character for her.
> 
> 3\. When Nate talks about there being more flowers coming, he basically set up deliveries for her every day starting with Valentine's Day, and they were all supposed to signify something in the language of flowers, but then he had to try to cancel the deliveries in a panic when Holly claimed she didn't want any gifts. Hence the poor delivery boy getting caught in the middle. 
> 
> 4\. Unlike me Holly is someone who is great with money and puts a lot of care into her appearance, so I basically just put her in clothes I look longingly at while online window-shopping. Her satin dress is from Maje. 
> 
> 5\. Last minute safety notice: don't leave stoves unattended and uh don't try to climb down a fire escape in the middle of February to get something out of your car.


End file.
